


Do You Yield?

by duckbunny



Series: Camaraderie [5]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Asexual Character, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, M/M, Non-Sexual Kink, Platonic BDSM, Subdrop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 13:04:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5627605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duckbunny/pseuds/duckbunny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Alexander is absolutely certain of what he's seeing now. Laurens does not look like that except in very specific circumstances. He really is going to have to kill someone."</p><p>Or: That Awful Time During The Retreat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do You Yield?

Alexander is most of the way to falling asleep when Laurens makes it back to their tent. He's been at work since before dawn for the General, writing dispatches until the last possible moment while the camp was pulled down around them, slogging with the rest of the army all day and then writing, writing, writing, orders and requisitions and reports. He is learning just how much work it takes to move an army. By the time he was free to crawl into his blanket and sleep, it was past midnight.

Laurens has been running all over camp delivering half of what he writes, so it was no great surprise to see his bedroll empty. When he stumbles through the tent-flap, Alexander opens one eye long enough to determine he's not come to murder anyone, and leaves it at that.

He's woken from dozing by a sound he can't quite place. Even at this hour, the camp is not entirely quiet, but the more he gets used to the noise the less it wakes him; he listens sleepily to the chorus of little disturbances filtering through the canvas, hoping to identify whatever startled him so he can sleep through it next time.

The second noise wakes him all the way up. He knows that sound. Has lain awake at night making that sound himself. Laurens is _crying_.

Alexander props himself up on one elbow, entirely uncertain of whether he should speak. Laurens will hear him moving and likely go silent, or tell him to go back to sleep, and then he will know to pretend tomorrow that he heard nothing – but Laurens gasps “Shit!” and curls up tighter, unmistakeably afraid.

Afraid of _Alexander_.

He doesn't stop to get up, even. He just crawls across the cold ground until he bumps into Laurens and can set a hand on his shoulder, rubbing slow circles through the blanket. “Laurens,” he says softly, “what is it?”

He would have lain down and let Laurens keep his shame to himself. If this had been only fear over the war, or grief, he could have let it be. But those things would not make Laurens sound scared of him. Laurens being scared of him is something he has to understand and _fix_.

Laurens is shaking under his hand, breathing in shallow uneven gasps like he's still hoping not to be heard. He doesn't speak until Alexander pulls away for a moment to fumble with flint and steel trying to get the stump of a candle lit; then he chokes out “I'm sorry” as if he thought Alexander was going somewhere. The light shows tear-tracks on Laurens' face and his eyes wide open and staring.

It is horribly suggestive. Alexander presses close to his friend, wraps an arm around him blankets and all and whispers “Don't be, don't, you have nothing to apologise for, whatever it is you've done nothing wrong, just tell me who I need to kill-” and Laurens' laugh is a wretched broken thing but he does laugh.

“I'm perfectly serious,” Alexander says fiercely, “tell me who they are and I'll call them out, I'll see them pay for this.”

“Don't. _Please_.” Laurens is staring up at him and Alexander is absolutely certain of what he's seeing now. Laurens does not look like that except in very specific circumstances. He really is going to have to kill someone. Except that Laurens is reaching out to cling to Alexander's shirt, bury his head in his chest and whisper desperately “They'll _know_. Hamilton, please, everyone will know, please don't, I don't even know who they were, you _can't_.”

Alexander holds him close. “Then I won't. Only because you ask it, anything less and I would, whatever they did they deserve it -”

“ _Promise_ me.”

“I promise. I promise. I won't call them out, I won't kill them, only tell me what they did, Laurens, because I can't risk doing this to you by mistake.”

Laurens takes a shuddering breath, deeper than he was managing before but still ragged, and says “It was a fight.”

“Go on?”

“It was just a fight. It shouldn't have been anything, I kicked over a cup and maybe he was drunk, I don't know, he wouldn't back down, and he was bigger than me.”

“He beat you.”

“He got my arm twisted round, he wanted me to say I yielded, and I couldn't get loose, I tried and tried and I _couldn't_ and I had to, I'm sorry, I had to give in. And then I thought. Like you. Like Lafayette. And I didn't want him to, I hated him for it but he didn't, he just threw me on the floor and he laughed at me and it was _worse_.”

Alexander's heart is pounding. He reaches up to run his fingers through Laurens' hair, stroking gently, listening to his breathing gradually calm and trying not to imagine it, how Laurens has no defences once he surrenders like that, how helpless he must have felt. The way he was left stranded, needing exactly what he'd been fighting against. They had no right to treat him that way, no right to lay a finger on Laurens that he did not welcome. 

“I gave my word I would not kill them,” Alexander says at last, “but you will have to forgive me, my dear Laurens, if before long I track him down and put frogspawn in his boots.”


End file.
